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Super Mario Bros. Game History From 1980

Though a Super Mario-like character made its first video game appearance in 1981 in Nintendo's "Donkey Kong" arcade game, it wasn't until 1983 that Mario starred in his own, little-known game. Two years later, with the release of "Super Mario Bros.," the game franchise hit North America by storm and has been common for several different consoles ever since.

Early Years
- The first installment of the "Super Mario Bros." video game franchise was an arcade game, not the classic "Super Mario Bros." game released for the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1985. The first game, named "Mario Bros," was released on arcade and is a precursor to the game franchise. In the original arcade game, Mario and his brother Luigi fight against turtles and other enemies in a setting that "Super Mario Bros." will partly emulate.
1980s
- The 1980s saw the explosion of the "Super Mario Bros." franchise. The 1985 game sold more than 40 million units and was followed up in 1986 by another Mario game for the NES based on the arcade game. In 1988, "Super Mario Bros. 2" was released, featuring gameplay that was a departure from the side-scrolling action in the original game. "Super Mario Bros. 3" hit the market in 1989 and eventually became the top-selling video game of all time with 17.28 million sales. (The 40 million units sold of the original NES game is artificially inflated because the game typically came with the gaming system itself.)
1990s
- Mario jumped in to the 1990s with the 1991 release of "Super Mario World" for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). The game was similar in format to earlier games in the franchise, but featured 16-bit graphics and introduced the Yoshi character. In 1993, "Super Mario All Stars" was released for the SNES and featured re-releases of the first three NES games, but with better graphics. "Super Mario World 2" was available for SNES gamers in 1995, and a year later, "Super Mario 64" was released for the new Nintendo 64 system.
2000s
- Following the 1996 release of "Super Mario 64," Nintendo had the longest gap between its Mario releases. The next game, "Super Mario Sunshine," came in 2002 for the Nintendo GameCube. In 2007, Mario teamed up with Sega rival Sonic in the "Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games" game for the Wii. That same year, "Super Mario Galaxy" was released for the Wii, giving gamers the ability to take Mario through space. The game's sequel came out in 2010.

Classic Console Games